Dangerous, Dirty, Violent and Young

The son of the FBI's most wanted woman tells the electrifying story of a childhood on the run – and a half-century of revolutionary struggle in America

We all grapple with a past that defines us: culture, religion, a family story. But what happens when you inherit a revolution?

Zayd Ayers Dohrn was born underground. His parents were fugitives after a decade fighting the US government; his mother co-founded a leftist radical group called the Weathermen, and replaced Angela Davis on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. All his life, Dohrn’s parents said his birth marked a clean break with violent revolutionary struggle but, in this explosive memoir, he discovers that story wasn’t entirely true.

Dangerous, Dirty, Violent and Young offers a page-turning account of an infamous family and their life in hiding, as well as the political battles of the ‘60s and ‘70s. At its heart it asks big questions: how can a child survive when the place they feel safest – with their family – also puts them in danger? What does it mean to be a good revolutionary, and how should young people today try to change the world?

'A fascinating journey that illuminates, in often thought-provoking ways, the politics of violence in radical movements' Angela Davis

© Zayd Ayers Dohrn 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026